


Cura Te Ipsum

by lindmere



Series: Passing Through [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-16
Updated: 2012-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:32:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindmere/pseuds/lindmere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy has a touch of something that's going around the ship; Kirk is happy to provide him with a cure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cura Te Ipsum

The sickbay doors swished open, and McCoy turned toward them with what was becoming well-practiced nonchalance.

“Welcome back. Nice of you to drop by."

"Some welcome,” Kirk huffed. “You had medics waiting in the transporter room to waylay me.”

McCoy let his gaze run down Kirk, starting with the cut on his forehead, over the blood-spotted uniform shirt, down to the ripped hem of his pants. McCoy ignored his petulant expression and focused on the left arm clutched tightly to his side, a sure tell if there ever was one.

"Can't imagine why. All right, let's get you in here." McCoy shepherded him toward one of the bays, got him perched on the edge like a bird about to fly away. He placed a hand on his chest and gave him a push. "Down, boy." Kirk tipped backwards and landed with a soft grunt. The medics, hovering nearby, looked a bit shocked; McCoy waved them away. “Get the captain a hot meal and a clean uniform. I can handle this.”

“A cold beer would be nice,” Kirk called after them, not intending to be heard. With no audience left but McCoy, he settled into a shallow breathing pattern and stared at the ceiling.

The scan showed nothing much: slightly elevated heart rate and BP, but that was normal following transport. If he managed to survive his five-year tour, he was going to devote the rest of his life to proving that beaming caused cancer and hair loss and whatever else he could think of. For now, it was self-evident that it caused an increase in reckless behavior in starship captains under 30 years of age.

Kirk had a high potassium load around his major muscles, and a few areas of inflammation that were probably nothing worse than bad bruises. He detached Kirk’s elbow from his side and zeroed in on his ribcage with the handheld tricorder he liked using in conjunction with the biobed for finer control.

“Uh-huh. Hairline fracture of the 7th and  8th ribs.” He put the tricorder down, leaned on the bed, and looked down at Kirk. “Only you could break a rib on a  _diplomatic_  mission.  Was this before or after you vanished for 12 hours without your communicator? Spock was about five minutes away from arming torpedoes.”

“Oh,  _Spock_  was worried.” He smirked up at McCoy for a few seconds, and, getting no reaction, continued. “You didn’t ask me how the mission went.”

“From the evidence, I’m guessing not so well.” Kirk said nothing. “Oh, all right. ’How did the mission go, captain?’

“Complete success. We signed an eight-year mutual defense treaty with Gamma Civillon with first purchase rights on strategic elements.” He watched with minimal interest as McCoy tugged his shirt up to get a visual, revealing a slice of pale skin and a lot of mottled bruising.

“Well! Another resounding success for Captain Kirk and the Enterprise. The Admiralty will be pleased.”

“The Admiralty definitely won’t be. They sent us here to fail. Ow!” Kirk let out an indignant yelp as McCoy pressed lightly on his bruised rib. Kirk generally had an almost alarming inattention to his own injury and discomfort, but iatrophobia made him whiny.

“They sent the Enterprise, their most advanced ship. To fail.”

“Yes, their most advanced ship, their least experienced captain, and their most incompetent diplomat.”

“If you say so. All right, shirt off. Pants, too. I can fix up whatever that is on your left shin while I’m at.” He let McCoy help him back to a sitting position with a barely concealed grimace; allowed McCoy to take off his boots and shimmy off his pants with ill grace. He lifted his arms with a wry smile that turned into a gasp, waiting for McCoy’s help in pulling off his uniform shirts. McCoy saw that his ribcage had been wrapped with a half dozen or so turns of white fabric strapping.

“A compression wrap! How charmingly old-fashioned and completely useless. Good setup for pneumonia if you do it right.” Kirk did nothing but absorb the sarcasm as McCoy gingerly severed the thick layers of bandaging carefully away with a laser scalpel.

Now dressed in nothing but his briefs, Kirk allowed himself to be lowered back onto the bed, watching with almost comical suspicion as McCoy readied the osteogenerator.

McCoy welcomed the distraction. There was something about watching the captain undress, about seeing all that bare flesh, which he found disturbing. It was an unfortunate fact, since as CMO he was the captain’s personal physician, and since as  _this_  captain’s personal physician, he had to patch the man up after almost every mission, including refueling stops.

Lord knows he’d seen it enough, including all those mornings he’d shoved Kirk into the shower 20 minutes before their first class, which was generally 10 minutes after he’d gotten in the “night” before. Maybe McCoy didn’t like the reminder that it had, after all, been just last year. Maybe he needed the uniform, the command gold, as much as the rest of the crew. Stripped of it, Kirk’s body still showed the softness of youth, though it was long and lean, all legs and back, built like a greyhound, for speed. At the moment, it looked all too vulnerable as well. There were half a dozen spectacular contusions, and the thing on his shin turned out to be a swollen knot of flesh the size of a tennis ball.

“Good god, Jim. And you’re telling me Ambassador Luong is the one who’s a lousy diplomat.”

“The worst.” Kirk sighed with either relief or resignation as McCoy positioned the osteogenerator and attached it with a little skin fixative. “Well, maybe in another context he’d be OK. But you should have heard him, droning on and on about the galactic values of peaceful cooperation between planets and how Federation worlds had a 41.7% higher standard of living per capita than non-Federation worlds adjusted for social, cultural and biological factors, blah blah blah.  _I_ got sick of listening to him. The Grand Consul was crawling out of his skin. He was almost as bored as he was on the ship tour.”

“He didn’t seem so bored when you blew through here. He was hanging on your every word.” McCoy, in dress uniform for his part in the dog-and-pony show, had gotten a good look at the Grand Consul, a middle-aged bearded man of medium height, opulently dressed, just on the well-built side of portly. He’d listened politely while McCoy rattled off the features of sickbay, but had turned his dark, intent gaze back to Kirk as soon as courtesy allowed.

“Uh-huh. Anyhow, Luong was about as interesting and relevant as one of those patriotic Federation vids they make you watch in fifth grade. As if Gamma Civillon has any motivation but unenlightened self-interest. It’s a typical exploitation colony—parents and grandparents worked liked dogs so their children could enjoy a life of ease and plenty, and boy, do they enjoy it. Especially the Grand Consul.”

“Wine, women, and song?”

“Wine and song, for sure. Women? For the Grand Consul, not so much, although he made sure there were plenty available for his guests. I doubt the Admiralty knew that when they sent me, although I’d kind of like to think they’re that devious.”

That effectively stifled McCoy’s next question, which was going to be what Kirk had done to make him see the light on the benefits of a Federation alliance. He felt himself flush a bit and covered it by turning the dermal regenerator, and his attention, to the bruise on his left shoulder.

“See, Gamma Civillon cares about one thing, which is protecting the interstellar shipping lanes.” Kirk sketched out his vision with his right hand, ignoring McCoy’s protests. "If they can’t trade their high-energy elements, they’re just another miserable rock where the solar radiation at noon is enough to make your hair fall out. The old men at the Admiralty think that means they’ll be happy to jump into the Klingons’ arms if war breaks out, because if they’re not invested in the Federation as a concept, then they don’t care who they sell their minerals to.”

“And you think the Admiralty is wrong.” McCoy moved on to the bruise on the anterior tibialis. He probably owed Kirk a tongue-lashing for that one; complications were rare, but it shouldn’t have been left unattended. At that particular moment, he was too morbidly fascinated listening to this very young, almost naked young man casually discussing the fate of planets.

“It’s not just me; it’s Pike and a good part of the Federation Council, even if they don’t have the guts to come out and say it. The loss of Vulcan wasn’t just a huge military hit. We also lost some reasons for joining the Federation: Vulcan science, Vulcan technology, Vulcan diplomatic skills. Without Vulcan, and with the Klingons becoming more aggressive, we can’t be as picky as we used to be. We have to meet planets on their own terms, and convince them we understand their interests. The Grand Consul knows that if a war broke out, the Klingons would just annex Gamma Civillon, or take what they want through piracy. He has much more to gain if things remain tense but stable; he can sell to both sides and develop new markets for his other raw materials. In effect, we signed a treaty promising to help protect Klingon supply lines, and that’s  _okay_. We can put another planet in the ‘safe’ column and concentrate on more interesting things like deep space missions.”

“Your perspective on the galactic balance of power is fascinating, but you still haven’t explained where the broken bone and the contusions fit in. No, wait, let me guess: you picked a fight with Luong so he’d recuse himself from the mission and leave you in charge.”

“ _Please_. They closed that loophole before they made me captain. No, I ditched Luong and went with the Grand Consul to his house in the Para Hills. Shit heaps, if you ask me, but the house was nice, and there was a huge party with the whole clan and I got the big honor of dancing with the Grand Consul’s fourth cousin twice removed or something. Then he and I went one-on-one in the old Civillon sport of  _dokan._  It’s one of those stupid tests of ‘manhood’ people get weepy about when they’re drunk. The good old days when men were men, all that crap. Each player gets these two things like long dumbbells. They’re small and padded, but they weigh a ton. You’re supposed to spin ‘em around and whack your opponent, anywhere is fair.”

“So you lost.”

“No, we tied. I think. I’ve gotten a lot better since I’ve been sparring with Sulu. Plus, Sulu showed me it isn’t easy to throw a fight without looking to0 obvious unless you’re really that much better than your opponent, which Sulu, by the way, isn’t.”

“I think I remember patching you up after that lesson.” McCoy had done all he could for the surface damage. “You want me to apply some sterile leeches? They’ll help with the swelling.”

“Oh god no,” Kirk shivered. “Anyhow, where do people get this idea this idea you’re not supposed to beat the captain at anything? My ego’s not  _that_  fragile. Chekhov’s cleaned my clock at chess often enough.”

“What about the Grand Consul’s ego?  Did he look like you after the match?”

“More or less. Marks on your body are part of the game; it’s how you keep score. You wear nothing but this loincloth-like thing called a  _bron_  so everyone can see if you’re hit. In the old days they’d play until one person passed out or gave up, but these days they call it well before that. The rib thing happened when I slipped on a wet spot on the floor and slid into an incoming blow. The Grand Consul was very apologetic; he insisted on tending to it himself.”

“Those people should use some of their ridiculous wealth on osteogenerators.”

“That wasn’t the point. It was more of a—I mean, in that culture, when men—Well, anyway, it was a mountain retreat and kind of rustic, and however he treated it you’d probably be complaining now, anyway.”

There was something about this turn in the story that made McCoy very uncomfortable. Fortunately he was saved from answering by the arrival of one of the medics, Chapel, who had come back with a tray of food— _gespar_  and wheat cakes, it looked like. The mess had been serving a lot of Vulcan food lately; McCoy suspected blatant influence peddling on Spock’s part.

“Thank you, Chapel.” Kirk turned the high beams on her for a minute.

“Of course, sir. Glad to have you home safely.” McCoy caught the wide end of her smile as she walked away.

“Jim, don’t you start. I told you to lay off my staff or I’ll have you blindfolded the next time you come in here.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He looked convincingly baffled.

“You really don’t, do you?” McCoy spread a blanket over him and pulled the tray close enough for Kirk to reach. “The osteogen is going to take about half an hour. Enjoy your Vulcan slop and a nap if you want. If Spock comes prowling around looking for a report, or to beat you senseless for that stunt with the communicator, I’ll tell him I’ve got you under observation.”

“That’s it? You don’t want to know anything else about the mission?” McCoy in fact had many questions, none of which he felt like asking.

“If it’s not directly related to a broken bone, I’m probably better off not knowing. Good night, Jim.”

\+ + + + +

 Kirk got his deep space mission, to an unmapped region of the Morgana Quadrant. McCoy found out what one of his Academy instructors had meant about deep space exploration as being “long stretches of mind-numbing boredom punctuated by moments of terror.” The key, as everyone kept reminding each other, was routine. McCoy met M’Benga for rounds every ship’s morning, followed by coffee and a review of research abstracts. They conducted physicals of the new crew who’d joined before the mission; they regularly rechecked the non-humans to make sure they were adjusting to the environment. That took care of the days. The nights were another story, as McCoy found himself singularly uninterested in the hobbies and diversions that proliferated as if the  _Enterprise_  were some wholesome, high-IQ version of an old interstellar pleasure cruiser.

Though he saw Kirk little, his presence was everywhere. He ran drills every day and gave himself duty in each department. “I want to know her down to the last rivet,” he’d said on their maiden voyage, and whatever else he was accomplishing, it seemed to be going over gangbusters with the crew. He heard a group of engineers in the mess speak admiringly of how the captain had replaced a matrix restoration coil while dangling one-handed 10 meters above the deck. One evening, he arrived in the gym to find it packed and a Command-versus-Engineering volleyball game in full swing, with Kirk both playing and engaging in some uncaptainly trash talking. McCoy didn’t stay long.

There was nothing to prevent him from stopping by Kirk’s quarters with a bottle of bourbon and a deck of cards, except that he didn’t. The more days passed without some incident that brought them together on the bridge or in sickbay, the more discomforting the idea of being alone with Kirk in his quarters seemed. With 1,100 people demanding his attention, with crewmembers prizing little bits of his time like shiny presents, it seemed unfair, not to say a little desperate, to presume on an Academy friendship that Kirk might well have outgrown.

There was the truth of it. Half the ship was in love with him, quite literally. He’d heard Spock complain on occasion about the noisome rise in pheromone levels when the captain entered a crowded room. The other half saw him as the boat their ambitions sailed in, whether it was for adventure, or promotion, or just getting home alive. There were times when McCoy thought Starfleet Command was moonstruck itself, so giddy with acts of heroism and their own escape from death that they’d handed the keys of their most powerful starship to someone who hadn’t been in space since the day he was born. This was a man famous for jumping into freefall above a dying planet, and accelerating  _downward_. It was enough to make anyone nervous, even someone who didn’t love  _terra firma_  as much as Dr. McCoy. As the famous pilot’s expression had it, it wasn’t the fall that killed you, it was the sudden stop at the end.

\+ + + + +

A week into the voyage, McCoy had abandoned his attempts to be in anything other than full mope, and fled the officers’ mess with a dinner tray and the intention of eating it in front of a vid in his quarters. The Andorian version of  _Anna Karenina_  was doing nothing to lighten his mood, so he wasn’t entirely disappointed when the door chimed, figuring it was Scott in search of another victim for his most-nightly poker games. The door swished open and revealed Kirk, leaning against the door jamb, holding a bottle of Saurian brandy where every guy held a bottle of Saurian brandy at some point when he was drunk and trying to be “funny.” McCoy briefly considered closing the door again.

“That joke never gets old for you, does it?”

“The  _really_  funny thing is that Saurians don’t look like this. They’re flat and pronged. Or so I’ve heard.” He was, or at least appeared to be, completely sober.

“I suppose you want to come in?” Kirk didn’t reply, but sauntered over the tiny galley and grabbed a couple of glasses. He sloshed a little brandy into one and a lot more into another and handed it to McCoy, making the “drink up” gesture with his other hand.

“Trust me, you’re going to need it.” They sat down on the armchairs McCoy had substituted for the Fleet-issued table and chairs, more or less for exactly this purpose.

“Something about this mission I’m not going to like?”

“Nothing in particular. Unexplored planet, bizarre telemetry, ships mysteriously disappearing nearby. Pretty routine stuff.” He took a suspiciously small sip, then rested his elbows on his knees and looked directly at McCoy. “Bones, how come you haven’t stopped by my quarters since, oh, forever?”

“Oh, you know.” McCoy cleared his throat a little. “Still getting the hang of things in Sickbay. We added 20 crew before this mission. Plus this deep space thing—time kind of gets away from you.”

“Riiight.” Kirk looked at him with something oddly like sympathy. “Well, here we go, then.” He put the glass down on the small side table and scooted his chair a little closer.

“Before I took command of this ship, Admiral Pike and I had a lot of long talks. He told me things they didn’t teach us in the Academy. From the minute you join Starfleet, it’s all about the glory of exploration and the honor of serving as a peacekeeper. They tell us we’re the best and brightest, the envy of our home worlds. That most people will die without ever seeing their planets from space.” He rested his elbows on his knees and turned his head toward McCoy, his blue eyes dark and serious.

“What they don’t tell you is what it’s like living your life in a tin can bouncing around a huge void. How your subconscious knows, on some level, that you’re not supposed to be here. We need oxygen, food, water, and climate control to survive in space. That’s it. All the rest of this—“ he gestured around McCoy’s quarters—“is an illusion designed to fool us into thinking we’re safe out here. What we’re doing out here, most of the time, isn’t keeping the peace or exploring new worlds. It’s  _trying not to die_.”

“Uh, Jim.” McCoy found that his voice had dropped to the same confidential level as Kirk’s. “I’m still not sure what this is about, but if you’re trying to be reassuring, it isn’t working.”

Kirk sighed. “I know. OK, here’s the deal. Apparently when people are under that kind of stress, especially for the first time, there’s a kind of…transference. To the person who they feel can protect them from all the bad stuff. They want to build that person up, make them larger than life. And when they do that it’s not unusual for them to develop…feelings.”

“Ah, I get it,” McCoy said, with relief. “Some of the younger crewmembers have developed a crush on you. Well, I can’t say I haven’t noticed. Do you really think it’s a problem? It sounds pretty harmless to me.”

 “I’m not talking about the younger crewmembers. I’m talking about you.”

“ _What?_  Are you out of your ever-loving mind?” McCoy almost jumped out of his chair, but he was hemmed in, between Kirk and the wall. “Talk about delusions of grandeur! It’s not enough to have Starfleet and the crew mooning over you, but now your best friend’s got to be in love with you?”

“I didn’t say anything about love,” Kirk said calmly. “Look, we’ve known each other for four years and I as far as I know you’ve never had any interest in me sexually. I also know that you’re shit scared of a lot of things about space travel, and you got yourself stuck on the most bad-ass ship in the fleet with an inexperienced captain who loves getting into trouble. You’ve got as much experience being CMO as I have being captain, the difference being I  _wanted_  to be captain and I don’t think you ever wanted to be CMO. But you took the position, and I’m grateful you did. And you’re doing a helluva a job. That’s not just me saying that; M’Benga says it all the time, and he’s got six years in space and five at the Vulcan Medical Institute."

“Uh, thanks, I think.”

“But that wasn’t the only reason I wanted you as CMO. It was important to me to have someone on the ship—a senior officer, a  _peer_ —who’s not afraid to talk frankly to me, and who I can talk frankly  _with._ Who’ll call bullshit if he thinks I need it. And you’ve certainly never had a problem with that.”

“If there’s any kind of  _thing_  at all—which there absofuckinglutely isn’t, by the way—it’s nothing  _you_  didn’t put there. You flirt shamelessly with every sentient being on this ship, maybe with the  _plants_  for all I know. You’ve got a god-damned  _Vulcan_ , a Vulcan who tried to  _kill_  you, eating out your hand like Shetland pony.” McCoy was working himself up to a righteous rage; it felt good. “And that weird story about the Grand Consul? What the hell was  _that_  about? Did you really want me to think you’d—“ he stumbled for a word—“ _seduce_  some alien potentate to secure a mission objective?”

“Do you think I would?” Kirk asked calmly.

“I have no bloody idea. But I refuse to be another one of your conquests. Whatever problems I have with being on this ship, being on  _your_  ship, I’ll handle myself. I don’t need your god-damned psychoanalytical bullshit to tell me I’m afraid of space, and I don’t need you here  _managing_  me.”

“Have it your way,” Kirk said. “I was trying to make it easier for you. If that way didn’t work for you, maybe this will.” With that, James T. Kirk leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth.

McCoy shot out of his chair, almost knocking it over, and stumbled to his feet, moving not in the direction of the door, as any sensible person would ,but toward the bed. Kirk paused to stabilize the little side table, which was shaking and threatening to tip over the drinks, and then rose and walked, with maddening calm, toward McCoy, placing himself between his panicking CMO and the door.

“So you don’t agree with my diagnosis.” He moved closer, putting both hands on McCoy’s shoulders and ignoring his flinch. “Think of it as a life experience. I’m pretty sure you’ve never done a starship captain, and despite what you might think, I’ve never done a senior officer. In his quarters.” Their bodies weren’t touching, but it felt like there was plasma between them, sparking heat and energy back and forth. Kirk’s eyes, large and blue and serious, filled all his vision, and a story of his granddaddy’s floated through his head, about how he’d seen a rattlesnake hypnotize a mouse so that the poor creature stayed frozen in place until the snake struck.

Kirk leaned in again, and McCoy’s heart dropped into his boots. This time, though, the kiss was gentle, a bare brush of lips against his own. He paused, letting McCoy feel his closeness, the heat of his body,  then leaned in and did it again. McCoy felt his eyes flutter closed. As pure sensation it was very pleasant; Jim’s lips were soft and warm and he smelled good, of musky young male and something citrusy and clean. Jim kept kissing him that way, almost rhythmically, while his brain kept up a soothing chant of  _This is not happening. You’re not kissing the captain. He’s not walking you toward the bed._

 __Yet, that apparently, was what was happening. Kirk’s hands had moved under his elbows, supporting him, but as soon as McCoy felt the side of the bed against the backs of his knees, the support was withdrawn. Jim took a small step back, placed a hand on McCoy’s sternum, and pushed. An instant later McCoy was flat on his back, paralyzed, and Jim was looking down at him with his pirate’s smile.

There was nothing Jim Kirk liked as much as winning. Well, maybe one thing.

Efficient and unhurried, Kirk stripped off his uniform shirts, then with the deliberate casualness of a magician, turned his back on McCoy long enough to drape them neatly over the armchair, fully expecting McCoy would still be there when he turned back. The last time McCoy had watched this, it had made Kirk look boyish; now he looked anything but. He gave McCoy another one of those devastating smiles and then did the worst possible thing he could do, which was climb onto the bed with his knees on either side of McCoy, rest his elbows on either side of his shoulders, and give him another one of those insane full-body kisses with only the touch of his lips. This time, McCoy’s body was in the line of fire, as it were, and the shields were most definitely down.

As he felt a flush of heat travel down his body, he could feel his brain composing an apologetic note as it prepared to walk out the door.  _I did what I could, but you’re lonely and hard up and no one could withstand that anyway. You could have helped by jerking off a bit more often, but you didn’t, so you’re on your own_.

Kirk’s eyes, bright and innocently blue, were inches from his own, and his long, warm fingers were pushing McCoy’s shirt up his ribcage.

“Why don’t you take it off?” he stage-whispered. McCoy could only shake his head slightly.

“Suit yourself.” He kept pushing the material up, up to his chest, the soft fabric sliding grazing over his nipples, forcing a gasp out of him that was almost a curse. Kirk’s smile broadened:  _Got you_. Kirk curled the edge of the shirt under, so that the weather-resistant, bio-monitoring, chevroned material of an official Starfleet overshirt could be used to torture his nipples, again and again, until McCoy thought he could come, just from that. He almost did, almost let it, almost put his own hand between his legs, but whatever shred of dignity he had remaining balked at letting Kirk win that easily. He conceded the battle instead, raising his arms so Kirk could strip the shirt off and fling it, not off the bed but right next to them, for what purpose McCoy dreaded to think.

“Damn,” Kirk laughed, a little out of breath himself. “I like this angry, wild-eyed, desperate look on you.” He dropped his head to McCoy’s chest and began to apply sucking kisses down the line of his pecs, moving inexorably toward their goal, and right at the moment McCoy thought  _don’t do it don’t do it_ , Kirk wrapped his wet, soft lips around a nipple and began to suck. His right thumb rested lightly on McCoy’s chest, lazily brushing the other nipple. McCoy threw his head back and let out a desperate cry, part  _help_  and part  _more_. Kirk detached with a light, grazing bite and laughed with pleasure. “I knew you’d lose it in bed. I guessed that about you. To think what the world’s been missing.” He punctuated that thought with a stroke from breast to hip, and closed his fingers on the waistband of of McCoy’s pants.

“Jim—“ McCoy’s sand-blasted brain recovered enough to complain.

“What? Too soon? You need more foreplay? No problem.” He resumed where he’d left off, in the hollow of McCoy’s chest, tracing down it with the point of his tongue. McCoy put up a brave resistance until Kirk reached his belly, which had always been a sensitive area for him. Kirk’s hands were lightly gripping his waist, just above the hipbone, and Kirk’s mouth was doing frightening things to his abdomen. He felt his hips rise, straining for more contact, another part of his body gone over to the enemy side. Kirk raised his head and smiled impishly, hooking his forefingers under the waistband of McCoy’s trousers and briefs.

“Last chance. You know what the next stop is.”

McCoy, being preoccupied with other things, and not having previous experience with his captain stripping him naked, or time to think to what that might be a precursor, said “Unnnh.”

Kirk gave him another insufferable grin and  _bit_ the waistband of his trousers, tugging at them with his teeth, while his fingers tugged downward on either side.

“You bastard,” McCoy gasped.

“I’ll make a deal with you. If I pull these down, and you’re not hard, I’ll leave you alone.” It was a sucker’s bet; even from his vantage point, McCoy could see the fabric of his uniform pants tenting, so obviously Kirk had seen it, too. Leaving the work of pulling McCoy’s pants down to his hands, and watching with an exaggerated air of expectation, Kirk continued to tug with agonizing slowness: over his hips, to his pubic bone, and finally to the root of his cock.

“Uhnnn…enough, enough,” McCoy pleaded. Kirk briefly nodded his understanding and pulled the waistband up to provide clearance and stripped briefs and pants to his ankles, stopping to remove his boots and, thank god, his socks, because at this point naked and helpless was better than naked and helpless and ridiculous. Kirk tossed the boots on the floor and crawled back up the bed on elbows and knees like a commando, eyes bright and fixed on McCoy’s with an inscrutable determination. McCoy had absolutely no idea what he what he planned to do until the moment Kirk carefully gripped the base of his cock and engulfed it in his warm, wet mouth.

McCoy gave a shout that could probably be heard in the engine room and gripped at the covers to stop from rising off the bed. It was only the shock that prevented him from coming. It felt fantastically good and fantastically wrong. He should stop Jim, he should really stop him, but now Jim's lips were sliding wetly up his shaft and his other hand was cupping his balls, and a Bajoran monk might have had the forbearance to tell him to knock it off, but a hard-up doctor certainly didn’t. McCoy relaxed, in body if not in mind, unclenching his grip on the bedspread. Feeling McCoy capitulate, Kirk eased off, slowly sliding his lips up and away, sitting back on his heels a bit so he could look up at McCoy, who was transfixed by the surreal conjunction of his hard on and Kirk’s pirate smile.

Kirk let McCoy take a couple of breaths, then resumed what he was doing at a more leisurely pace. It was classic Kirk to up the ante that way. He had proven that he could get McCoy rock hard, get him naked, get him to surrender. Now he was manifestly determined to give him the best blow job he’d had in his life, and probably make him admit the point, after. Nevertheless, McCoy was surprised by the gentle exploration, with tongue and lips, up and down the shaft, circling the head, and nipping lightly at his balls until an anxious whimper made him stop.

“Sorry,” Kirk whispered, cupping his balls with a warm hand as if in apology as he took McCoy’s cock in his mouth again, a little more suction this time, a little more focus. McCoy, who had been drifting somewhere in stationary orbit, felt gravity kick in, the beginning of acceleration. Kirk’s other hand wrapped around the base of his cock and began to squeeze, gently at first, then more rhythmically, lips sliding up to seal around the crown, increasing the pressure. There were so many things going on at once, all of them so good, that McCoy fought the onrush of orgasm, wanting to enjoy everything a little longer, not quite ungracious enough to tell Kirk to slow down. He figured it out anyway, though, and slacked off the pressure, rolling the head of McCoy’s cock in his  mouth, lightly squeezing his balls, so tight now that he must have known what was about to happen.

He thought about saying  _Jim, that’s enough, I really appreciate it but I can’t let you finish this_. Thought about it, but his brain was moving glacially slow (hypoxia, probably), and by the time he’d made a half-assed attempt to reach down and pat Kirk’s shoulder, he’d started again, with clear intent, and this time McCoy was so primed and so close that a few jerks of his hand, a few hard pulls, and he was frantically grabbing at Kirk’s hair, trying to tug that golden head out of the line of fire. For a moment Kirk paused and McCoy teetered on the brink like a climber on a knife edge of ice, so that when Kirk gripped, sucked and pressed with one final time, it pushed him over, and he was falling, the onrush of climax roaring through his head.

With the easy skill of someone used to handling powerful machines, Kirk continued to suck, very gently, in time with his spasms, which went on and on, past physical ability and into some stubborn contractual fulfillment between Jim Kirk and his cock. McCoy’s throat, which had been too constricted to breath, relaxed enough for him to let out a gravelly moan. Only when the moans ground down into a sigh, and the aftershocks stilled, did Kirk slide his lips off his cock with a sort of polite finality.

For long minutes, McCoy kept his eyes closed, drifting on endorphins and complete, boneless relaxation. A vague thought floated through his mind that he hadn’t felt like this since getting on this damn ship, and that Kirk had found a foolproof cure for  _aviaphobia_ , and that it should really be named in his honor.  _The cure and the disease_ , he thought lazily, and contemplated falling asleep before deciding not to, partly because it would be rude and partly because he was curious to see if the world was still there.

He opened his just wide enough to see the carnage. His body was naked, flushed, and sheened with sweat, his briefs bunched around his ankles, and the blue arm of his uniform jersey clung to the side of the bed like a man going overboard.

“Don’t worry about it. You look great.” Kirk had stretched out beside him, leaning on an elbow. He looked kind of great himself, no real surprise as post-coital was doubtless one of his native environments. McCoy ought to have been annoyed that he was still half-dressed, but it gave the scene a kind of casualness that helped quell the  _oh shit, what have we done_. There being no evidence that he had done otherwise, McCoy assumed he’d swallowed. It made sense; Kirk had a stomach strong enough for a doctor, but in his current endorphin-drugged state, McCoy was inclined to be sentimental, and take it as a favor, or a compliment.

“That—“ McCoy cleared his throat and tried again. “That was,” he said, and got no further.

Kirk raised his arms and stretched lazily. “They should all be as easy as you.”

“Do this a lot, do you?” McCoy asked huskily, immediately regretting it.

Kirk did not seem offended. “I meant, compared to women. Women are like warp drives, so fucking complicated. Guys are like those little model rockets: you light the candle, and off it goes.”

That reminded McCoy to glance down and see whether the captain’s candle had in fact been lit. Kirk having been simultaneously blatant and obtuse, he had no idea whether he was interested in guys, or barring that, whether the novelty of blowing his CMO might have gotten him excited. Even now, it took some nerve to look directly at the captain’s package, the subject of heated speculation around the ship in conversations he had tried desperately not to be part of. Now he looked, directly and fearlessly, and what he saw might have fueled conversations for another few years.

“Do you want some help with that?” It seemed only fair; what it might mean beyond that, McCoy didn’t give himself time to think.

Kirk followed his gaze. “It’s OK. I’ll be fine. It won’t be the first time I’ve had a boner on the bridge.”

“The  _bridge_?”

“Yeah, I’m going to stop by. It’s super boring up there, heading in the same direction and looking at the same star field for days on end. Unexpected visits from the captain are good for morale.” Kirk’s tone was casual, entirely at ease carrying on a normal conversation shirtless with his erection jabbing lightly into his CMO’s naked thigh.

“Another tip you got from, uh, the admiral?” It felt a little sacrilegious to say Pike’s name aloud at this particular moment.

“This one I figured out on my own, when Sulu fell asleep on his console. You can only manually rechart the course based on long-range sensor data so many times, even if you’re Sulu.”

“So what do you do up there for a whole shift?” McCoy moved infinitesimally to the right. Kirk moved right along with him. 

“We’ve been switching stations. I’m pretty decent at the conning stations and absolute crap at monitoring subspace communications. It’s like a hundred angry gerbils talking at the same time. Uhura thought I was messing with her when I said I heard the  _Gagarin_  request an emergency stop at Starbase 167 for 10,000 liters of baby oil. Turned out it was  _babal eal_ , some kind of goo Tellarites use for--I’m not sure what, that’s as far as I could make myself care.”

“I seem to recall you were pretty good at communications at the Academy. Sure you weren’t playing it up for Uhura?”

“Considering she kind of hates me, has access to all ship’s communications logs, and is dating my first officer? Why would I do that?”

“You know, Jim, you’re a pretty damn good captain. I don’t just mean in crises; I expected that. But all the other stuff. Operations. People. Especially people.” He propped himself up on his elbows a little, somehow getting interested in the conversation. Kirk grabbed a pillow and wedged it under McCoy’s head.

“You’re going to make me blush,” he said, with an obnoxious little thrust against McCoy’s thigh. “But if you’re admitting that I was totally right about this thing with us, I graciously accept your apology. I also accept whatever it was you were offering to do to me before. Only if you really want to. I will also accept ‘for revenge.’”

Pretending he hadn’t felt the rigid thrust moments before, McCoy glanced southward. “Are you sure you’re still…oh, wow. Persistent erections are a symptom of Argellian blood fever, you know. I should make a note in your medical record.”

“Make a shipwide announcement if you want.”

“I’m just not sure I can…”

“That’s fine. Going down on me isn’t recommended for beginners,” he said a bit smugly. “A hand job will be fine. Where do you keep the lube?”

“Don’t have any.”

“God, Bones, you’re even a lousy date to  _yourself_. Lotion? Anything?”

“You can check the bathroom.”

Perhaps it was the well-known narcotic effect of endorphins, perhaps a thoroughly blown mind, or perhaps the fact that the SOB  _had_  been right all along, but McCoy found he was not the least perturbed by the sound of Kirk rummaging around in his bathroom for lube. He emerged a few moments later, holding a glass of water and a flat, plain bottle.

“Starfleet issue body lotion?” He grimaced. “I feel that I’ve let you down as a friend. When we get to Starbase 105, I’m taking you shopping.” He placed the bottle on the bedside table, stabilizing himself with a hand against the bed as he shucked his boots.

“You’re so worried about  _my_  sex life,” McCoy said. “What about yours? Eleven hundred people is a pretty small town for you, especially with most of it off limits after dark.” __

“Yeah, thank god for visiting scientists.” He finished with his socks and started to unfasten his trousers. “Seriously, though, the very, very sad truth is that most of the time I’m too busy or too tired. I have a girlfriend—“ he gestured vaguely around—“and she keeps me on a short leash.” He kicked off his pants and went for his briefs, thankfully not making too much out of the big reveal. He stepped out of the briefs and threw them aside, standing unselfconsciously with his hands on his hips.

“Sweet mother of mercy.”

“She’s the flagship for a reason,” Kirk said. “Wouldn’t want to let my girl down.”

He stood there a moment and let McCoy look at him, for the first time in so long without a doctor’s gaze. He was a thing designed for motion, but possessed a certain symmetry and elegance even standing still. All vertical lines, usually, except for now; nothing more riveting than his eyes except, again, for now. He sat on the edge of the bed and looked frankly at McCoy, as if to see whether his decision would change now that they were both naked. It didn’t; McCoy felt curiosity more than anything else, although “anything else” was certainly making its presence felt. Satisfied McCoy was not going to bolt, Kirk swung his legs around and stretched his long body out, left knee slightly cocked. McCoy grabbed a couple of errant pillows and piled them up behind them, then slipped his left arm behind Kirk’s head and sidled against him so they were lying thigh-to-thigh.

McCoy wasn’t quite sure what was being offered. There was a lot of body there, a long, lean, well-muscled torso, flat belly, and legs that went on to the horizon. A lot of body, but it was the  _captain’s_  body, and his erstwhile patient’s body as well. Although McCoy felt as if the seals had been broken on his curiosity, and that Jim wouldn’t object to anything he might try—would likely enthusiastically welcome it—he wasn’t sure he wanted to live with the knowledge of what Jim Kirk’s skin tasted like, or what it felt like to run his fingers down the line of symmetry from his chest to his abdomen. He decided to keep the engagement at the level of returning a favor.

“I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing,” McCoy said.

“And you call yourself a doctor,” Kirk said with a mock sigh. “It’s pretty much like doing yourself, except you won’t feel anything, which sucks for you but will be  _awesome_  for me. Here,” he said, handing McCoy the little bottle of lotion. “If it’s too weird, close your eyes. If it’s  _really_ too weird, don’t do it. Just don’t expect me to ask you out again, because you’re a tease.”

McCoy flicked open the bottle with one hand and poured a shallow palmful of lotion into the other, then set the bottle aside, letting the lotion warm. Kirk watched benignly as his hand began to move downward, approaching Kirk’s cock with a wariness that might, on reflection, have been flattering. Mercifully, Kirk closed his eyes and lay back, wearing a small smile of expectation that was familiar to McCoy. Carefully, he brought his right hand in contact, and slowly smoothed the lotion up the very long length of his erection.

As a doctor, McCoy had never found the touch of flesh—even alien flesh—to be alien, and this flesh was warm, smooth and taut, and, as Kirk had said, familiar in its own way. The lack of feedback was indeed strange, the tactile equivalent of wearing earplugs, but Kirk demonstrated his approval by giving a little sigh and shifting his shoulders in McCoy’s direction, so he could get a better grip. For a few minutes McCoy simply ran his hand up and down, feeling the shape and tautness of the shaft, shyly running a thumb over the head and returning to explore at greater length when Kirk gave a gasp of pleasure. It felt intimate more than sexual; it warmed McCoy to think that his friend would permit this, to be known in  _this_  way along with so many others. He turned a little to look at Kirk’s face, while his hand continued sliding up and down. It was completed relaxed, boyish again, the corners of his mouth turned up. It occurred to McCoy that this might be the only time other than sleep when Kirk’s agile mind was completely at ease, and McCoy wondered whether that was true even in sleep.

McCoy’s hand seemed to know what to do even with his mind engaged elsewhere. He began to gently increase the pressure, starting and the base, keeping light pressure as his hand stroked up, and twisting a bit at the head. Kirk gasped a little “yeah,” arched his back, and opened his eyes, gaze going immediately to his cock. The feeling of Kirk watching him do this was an unexpected charge, of what kind McCoy wasn’t quite sure.

“Like that. Just like that,” Kirk murmured. McCoy obeyed, repeating the stroke, falling into a rhythm, listening to Kirk’s breathy little sounds for cues to go faster or slower. It made a strange kind of sense that Kirk was quiet in bed; contrary to popular stereotype, he was neither an egotist nor an attention-seeker. He led by getting people to focus on their jobs, not on him, and required little approval for anything, his looks least of all. Command had stripped away all the conventional desires McCoy thought a lonely, neglected boy would have possessed; the ones that remained, so lofty and abstract, formed the whole of McCoy’s fears. Until that moment, McCoy had not realized how profoundly terrified he was at the thought that Jim Kirk had outgrown the need, if not the craving, for sex, and here was his own hand to remind him he was not as powerless as he seemed.

Beside him, Kirk was growing restive. He reached a hand out for the bottle of lotion, dumped a little into his left palm, and reached down beside McCoy’s.

“Here. Let me show you.” McCoy withdrew his hand and watched Kirk’s grip his own cock, giving a firm, even-pressured jerk in the manner known to every male human. McCoy was touched, both by the honest conventionality and by the thought that this was what Kirk likely did alone in his quarters, after long hours on the bridge, when he just wanted to get off and get to sleep. Kirk moved his hand away to let McCoy rotate in, bold enough now to apply firm pressure, feeling the rigid flesh yielding ever so slightly under the pressure of his fingers. Kirk lay back, buckling in: eyes closed, fists balled at his sides, still essentially silent. McCoy slightly increased the pace with each grip, falling into the ancient rhythm, as Kirk began to make soft “enh” sounds and thrust his hips infinitesimally.

McCoy could gauge the point of no return precisely, as Kirk’s body went rigid, his face blank and soft, hips frozen, as the internal wave rolled through him, and he ejaculated spectacularly. It was like a meteor shower, like fireworks, innocent and celebratory. McCoy watched in fascination, forgetting to look at Kirk’s face until it was too late and his eyes were already open. He was smiling, giving a little wriggle of his hips to encourage McCoy to keep doing what he had been doing autonomically, using light, even strokes to milk the last shivers of climax out of him. Apparently Kirk was neither overly sensitive nor overly transported: he watched what McCoy was doing with interest, his pleasure evident, his brain fully engaged.

“Ahh,” he said finally, when McCoy had withdrawn his hand, sticky with various fluids, unsure where to put it. “Thanks. That was really, really good. I needed that.” He leaned up and gave McCoy a closed-mouth kiss, quick and friendly.

“You can stay, if you want,” McCoy said, a little uncertainly. "I was headed to bed anyway."

“Thanks, but—bridge, gamma shift, all that. If I stay I’ll fall asleep, and if I fall asleep I’ll wake up in your bed, and if I do that—best not to find out. I feel like I’ve pushed my luck already.”

McCoy nodded, unsure whether he was getting the kiss-off and should be annoyed about it, or if had been the recipient of a special favor so extraordinary he should feel humbly grateful. “I understand, but—haven’t you kind of screwed with your ‘hands off the direct reports’ policy anyway?”

“Prior commitment,” he said, pushing himself off the bed. “Different case. I mean that.” He leaned down and ran a hand through McCoy’s hair, ruffling it a bit. “Also, remind me when we get to starbase that we have to do something about the haircut. Just because you’re from Kentucky doesn’t mean you have to have a forelock.” Seeing McCoy’s expression, he added, “Don’t overthink this. It doesn’t need to be categorized and examined and brooded over. If you want, it’s just another of those strange things that happen in deep space. We’re going to get mind fucked a hundred different ways before we’re done. Giving a buddy a hand job doesn’t begin to fall into that category. Or if you prefer, it’s practice.” He picked up his clothes and headed for the bathroom, leaving the door open. A moment later, McCoy heard the low thrum of the sonic shower.

McCoy found his own briefs and pants in a defeated little pile by the bed. He put on the briefs and threw the trousers on the bed with his uniform shirts and began to strip off the liberally spattered bedspread. He thought briefly about saving it as a trophy, like the bridal bed sheet in some ancient Earth cultures.

Kirk emerged from the bathroom looking shockingly fresh and not remotely post-coital. “Lucky for you the laundry chutes aren’t equipped with DNA analyzers.  _Or are they?_ ”

“I don’t know,” McCoy frowned. “Are they?”

“I suppose they’ve got to have  _some_  way of getting all those identical uniforms back to the right person. Fortunately, you know someone who’s due for some unsupervised access to the command Ops station. I’ve never hacked a laundry computer, that should kill a few hours. Maybe I’ll have your pants returned to Uhura. Let’s see what Spock would make of that.”

“I just got out of bed with my commanding officer. I probably shouldn’t piss off the first officer, or his girlfriend.”

“That’s the spirit,” Kirk said, giving McCoy a bracing little pat on the shoulder. “But seriously, we’ve got to start getting you out there. You’re good looking, you’re a doctor, you’re C-Motherfucking-O of the  _Enterprise_. Four years is long enough. I swear, if I ever meet that woman, I’ll kill her.”

“Get in line, pal.”

“I really wish you’d have let me crank call her from that Denebian tentacle massage place. Oh well, there’s always a next time.”

Kirk was fully dressed now, neat enough for an inspection. McCoy supposed that was the last a lot of people saw of Jim Kirk: an impeccably dressed, handsome young man heading out the door and leaving them behind, half-naked and doubtful. On this ship, at least, they had the right to follow, and if it led them somewhere they weren’t expecting to go, at least it wasn’t back, the one place Jim Kirk could reliably be counted on not to be.


End file.
